A high-powered journalist, David Von Drehle, spoke Sunday at an educational forum at my church (Country Club Christian) and explained in a context I had not fully understood some of the ramifications of the digital age.
Von Drehle (pronounced Von Drai-ly) is a 55-year-old editor at large for Time magazine. In addition to having written scores of cover stories for Time since he joined the magazine in 2007, he has written three books, including his most recent one, Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year. Before going to work for Time, he was an assistant managing editor at The Washington Post. Von Drehle and his wife, Karen Ball, also a journalist, live in Kansas City.
David Von Drehle
Von Drehle’s subject was the presidential election, and I was wondering how he was going to strike a balance, seeing as how Country Club is an old-line, traditional type of church that draws heavily from across the state line. (What am I getting at there is that the membership doesn’t look anything like The Kansas City Star newsroom; a goodly number of Country Club members probably will be voting for Donald Trump.)
As it turned out, being even handed was no problem for Von Drehle. Instead of assessing the two major candidates or trying to predict which of them would prevail in key states, he focused on how Trump has turned conventional campaigning on its head.
A key area in which Trump has vaulted ahead of Hillary Clinton — and ahead of almost all other politicians, for that matter, Von Drehle said — is disintermediation.
When Von Drehle introduced the word (wisely, he didn’t break it out until more than halfway through his talk), it left many heads in the room spinning, but he quickly explained it.
The gist of it is that in all presidential campaigns heretofore, the candidates went through intermediaries to get out their ideas and try to convince people to vote for them. Those intermediaries included the respective political parties, the candidates’ spokespersons, their consultants and pollsters, and, of course, journalists. But Trump has taken his campaign straight to the people, for the most part, thus waging a dis-intermediated campaign.
Trump planted the seeds for such a campaign on his hit TV show, The Apprentice, where viewers saw him unfiltered and felt like they got to know him. Two years ago, when he set out to attain the Republican nomination for President, he took the unfiltered approach to a higher level, using mainly his phone and his Twitter account to send his thoughts and ideas directly to millions of followers.
Von Drehle was quick to point out, however, that Trump doesn’t have a corner on disintermediation. There is an excellent local example, he said, citing the issue of whether Kansas City should build a new, single-terminal airport.
Before disintermediation, Von Drehle said, civic and political leaders — probably aided and abetted by The Kansas City Star — would have paved the way for a new airport by holding hearings, coming to a consensus and calling an election on whether to issue bonds to build a new airport.
The familiar script was followed to some extent…except that after a mayoral-appointed commission held hearings and determined a new, single terminal was the way to go, at least one City Council member, Teresa Loar, began squawking. It would be a big waste of money, she said, adding that the three-terminal facility that has served Kansas City for more than 40 years was convenient for passengers and did not need to be replaced.
By extending their electronic tentacles, like-minded people formed a wide circle around Loar’s position and effectively blunted not only the airport commission’s effort but the political push being led by Mayor Sly James. In the face of significant public opposition, James capitulated and put the onus on business leaders, saying if they wanted it, they needed to take the reins. Predictably, the initiative has languished.
The moral of that particular disintermediation story, as Von Drehle said, is this: In the disintermediation era, “no is easier than yes.” What that means is it’s easy to go online or onto Facebook and Twitter and grouse about the cost of a new, single terminal and assert that what we’ve got is adequate. And it’s much more difficult for a group of people, even influential people, to mount a strong case for a costly initiative that is vulnerable to simplistic opposition.
**
You probably already know how I feel about this, but here it is, for the record:
It’s a pathetic state of affairs when knee-jerking people decide they’re for or against something (or someone) on the basis of initial impressions formed and cemented in the absence of research and reflection that would cultivate a more reasoned, informed position.
And that’s where we are in regard to a badly needed new airport:
The status quo is held hostage by a bunch of people intimidated by a big price tag and grasping desperately at the notion that a new airport cannot possibly be as good as the 40-year-old one, which is as gloomy and lifeless as Donald Trump’s campaign.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Building a new single-terminal airport does have a price tag to it. So does maintaining more than a dozen security checkpoints and multiple HVAC systems.
I will remind the readers the new terminal would be paid for with revenue bonds, which would be retired from airport revenue, including gate lease fees paid by the airlines. The project would not require a tax increase. It’s a no-brainer.
Well, Fitz, the problem here is that until earlier this month, people like Yael Abouhalkah wrote biased editorials in The STAR and MISINFORMED the voters. The STAR lost its right to lead because they also refused to report both sides of MANY issues. I led the fight, working for free, when voters turned down $2.4 billion in largesse to support millionaires and hoity toighty Helzberg millionairesses, who backed BiState II and Big Soccer.
The STAR never saw a tax increase they didn’t support. Shame on them. But I, like so many tens of thousands of smart voters, no longer take The STAR. Yes, we have moved toward “disintermediation,” Fitz. Great piece. Thanks. Now I know what to call it!
Thanks, Tracy…
I will remind you, though, The Star has opposed tax proposals from time to time, including the goofy “translational medical research” sales tax, which I worked hard to block, in 2013. (It lost by a whopping 86-14 percent).
And, yes, it is nice to have a name to put to a generational change that is having a profound effect worldwide…You and I and others who commit the word to memory will sound awfully smart when we break it out in casual political conversation!
Here’s another concept that applies to this election that originated from one of my mentors in grad school, Svetozar Stojanovic. Professor Stojanovic was a visiting Serbian philosopher who wrote several books documenting the implosion of Communism in eastern Europe. The concept is called mendacious consciousness, a spin-off of the Marxian notion of false consciousness.
Mendacious consciousness is the concept he used to describe the state media, in essence, they’re lying, you know they’re lying, they know they’re lying, but the fact that they still have the power to lie with impunity gave comfort to their supporters that they were still in power.
If that doesn’t describe the behavior of CBS, ABC, NBC, PMSNBC, CNN, The NYT and WAPO, I don’t know what does.
And at least it’s not antidisestablishmentarianism. Ha–I did it! Abracadabra.
Yes, you did a GREAT job disintermediating on the “translational medical research” issue. The fact that you can point to the STAR opposing it demonstrates just how rare that was. And we can also be grateful to whoever the goofball was who named the ballot issue “translational” shot themselves in the foot right there. Didn’t make any sense, had to be explained, just an awful branding.
Also reminded voters of how many doctors there are from other nations, with names we cannot pronounce, and thick accents we cannot understand. A reading of the intent also reminded voters that it translated into profiteering by certain research doctors and their backers. The voters would have paid for the public to be their guinea pigs –but when it came time to bring medical breakthroughs to market, we would have gotten bupkis.
(yet another great word, this one Yiddish.)
Glad that issue failed. Thanks for your hard work, Fitz. As you learned, it’s hard to stop a train. With a few pennies. And, nobody pays you to FIGHT a tax. It’s only the beneficiaries of taxes, the millionaires, who pay guys like Jeff Roe (and the late Pat Gray) to support getting their hands into the taxpayers’ pockets.
I thought about using antidisestablishmentarianism as my jumping off point on this post but decided it would have made for a forced transition and that very few people (you and I and Altevogt and a few others) would remember the answer to The $64,000 Question.
Ahh, the joy of sick minds sharing a moment in history.
And this blog!
Somebody needs to point out that the Kansas City TIMES always provided fair and balanced coverage of every issue, every time. Between the Kansas City Times and the Kansas City Star, I am confident that all right-thinking Americans would agree that the Times had the studliest reporters. Just sayin’.
Jim,
I like the airport the way it is, Very convenient. BUT … I concede that it was built for a different time that no longer exists, and that it falls short of meeting the needs and demands of today’s travelers. So a new airport it is. But I’ll likely be dead by the time it’s built. And when are you going to drop by for a visit? I’m open 24 hours.
I am NOT intimidated by a big price tag nor, I suspect, are most of those who also oppose a single-terminal airport. Nor am I a “knee-jerking person,” and I will say that name-calling the opposition by anyone on any issue is one sure-fire way to get your opponents to dig in. Witness Mr. Trump, an ongoing case in point.
I want an airport to be user-friendly and convenient. I do not care whether it has glitz, lots of overpriced restaurants and knick-knack souvenir shops for me to while away the time between flights. That is not what I consider in making my travel plans. I’ve spent plenty of time in O’Hare, Atlanta, Logan and LaGuardia, but only because there isn’t any other way to get where I want to go. And those cities are major hubs, which Kansas City is not and never will be. After the hassle of using one of the big-name airports, it is a huge relief to come home to the simplicity and convenience of KCI.
From the beginning, the single-terminal airport has appeared to be to be one more ego project, backed by biased studies and pushed by a mayor, some council members and self-appointed civic leaders who care more about ribbon-cutting and chest-thumping than taking care of the basics that determine the quality of daily life for the people who live in Kansas City.
Amen. So it’s settled then: Karen Brown for Mayor.
I especially resonate to the knock on the knick-knacks. And the craycray notion that folks would drive out and go to the restaurants there. Like my grandpa used to do in the 50’s in Cedar Rapids, Iowa–load the grandkids into the 53 Cadillac and drive out to the airport and park behind the four foot chain link security fence (!!!) and our big long-anticipated entertainment was… to watch the planes take off.
The KC public has been so hodwinked by its elected officials. Remember the Union Station remodel? They honest to God put in the revenue projections that 800 people per day, 7 days a week/365, would drive there and pay $6 per car to park–for NO REASON. Not go into the station, not to stand under the clock or go to the Chamber offices or dine. Just PAY TO PARK. And that my friends is how you pad the budget.
Which is why I refused as a PR exec to even solicit that campaign budget for BiState I. I was not willing to swindle the voters with false data.
Obviously, I meant to type HOODWINKED, rather than HODWINKED. But I like this new word. The voters were “hodwinked”, as in a hod carrier. Which is like a basket of bricks.
hod carrier
Also found in: Thesaurus, Wikipedia.
hod carrier
n
(Building) a labourer who carries the materials in a hod for a plasterer, bricklayer, etc. Also called: hodman
—-
Because the truth behind ALL of these remodeling projects is job creation for the building trades. The unions and contractors who depend on taxpayer-supported edifices to stay in business.
Relates back to Bill Clarkson. And now Dunn Construction and all the rest. Gotta feed the beast…